AppMesh, a Mobile-First Customer-Tracking App, Launches

Unless you’re a salesperson who spends a lot of time on the road, you probably don’t give much thought to the software used to track customer leads. It’s known as CRM, customer relationship management; it’s a critical tool for sales teams, and it’s the primary product for which Salesforce.com became known. Indeed, “CRM” is Salesforce’s ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange.

Good as it may be — and lots of people like it — it is not without its critics. Many sales pros spend the majority of their time away from their desks and are relying increasingly on mobile devices to access their customer data. Plus, when it comes to adding information about the customer to the software, there’s a lot of typing involved. That gets old pretty quick.

Enter AppMesh, a startup led by two former Salesforce execs, Leo Tenenblat and Tom Tobin, who are aiming to rewrite the rules of CRM software with the iPhone and iPad in mind. Data available on one device syncs up across the others using whatever connectivity is available at the time. And users can also export their current data from Salesforce itself. (Getting info from AppMesh into Salesforce isn’t possible. Yet.)

The other thing AppMesh does is sync up with calendars and email. If one deal is potentially bigger than another, email about the larger deal will be placed atop the inbox where it can be acted on first. Go and see a customer, and AppMesh tracks information about the interaction by tagging it with location data.

It’s available now for the iPad and iPhone. Support for Android is coming. It’s in the App Store starting today.

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